Lifting columns, which may sometimes be referred to as telescopic columns or telescopic actuators, are used in a wide variety of medical devices, for example, in wheelchairs, examination tables, patient beds, and medical equipment. They are also used outside the medical field, for example, in industrial applications for facilitating movement of machine parts or other components along a direction of movement.
It is known to run lines (electrical lines or fluid lines), wires, conduits, etc. in the interior of columnar structures like table legs, supporting columns, and lifting columns, which structures may be referred to here interchangeably hereinafter by the words “column” and “columnar component.” It is thus often desirable to provide electrical or fluid junctions for these columns to connect lines outside the column to lines inside the column. These junctions may comprise, for example, a plug, or other electrical junction, on a side of the column, and these plugs may be integrated into the hollow profile section of the column. Adding plugs or other connectors to a column generally requires a post-processing or machining of the column, and this increases the complexity of the production process. Furthermore, the configuration of each plug must be specified at the time the column is ordered. In other words, in known systems, plugs which are to be accessible from the side of a column are integrated into the profile of the column when made. This means that the hollow profile section must be adapted or modified for each specific use. After the column is completed, it may be difficult for impossible to add or remove plugs, junctions or connectors to/from a column.
It would therefore be desirable to provide an arrangement that increases the design flexibility of columns with electrical or fluid junctions.